Frontalot — January 9, 2007

M.C. Frontalot, a “nerdcore hiphop” rapper who I have come to admire very much, has just let me know that the trailer for the Nerdcore documentary has been released. If you’ve not had the pleasure of listening to work by M.C. Frontalot, then you’re in luck, because his website has a large variety of MP3s he’s created over the past few years, as well as information on his performances and album for sale.

It’s easy enough to throw out a rap or two (in fact, I’ve been known to do a rap myself), but to not only construct a song that tells a story, has amusing rhymes, is clever without seeming contrived, and going in all sorts of neat directions… that takes talent. And Frontalot has talent.

The first song I ever heard of his was called “Message No. 419”, which is essentially about Nigerian Scam e-mails, and it’s beautifully contructed. I knew I wanted to hear more from him, and I’ve not been disappointed since.

I was lucky enough to attend a performance he gave on his last tour and was impressed not only with the strength of his backing band but that he could deliver these unusually complicated lines flawlessly through a ton of songs. The bar was this little place down in the village and a bunch of old friends came along, making it just a fantastic night all around. It was also filmed for the Nerdcore documentary, so I guess there’s a slim chance I’m in the background in one of the shots.

Frontalot has actually moved from San Francisco to the Boston area, meaning he’s just around the bend from where I live. There’s been some talk between us of collaboration, so we’ll see where that goes.

The trailer’s pretty impressive, and I’m sure the documentary behind it will be good. It has Weird Al! Who can argue!

“Bah. MC Frontalot is nothing but a nerd poser. It’s all about MC Chris.”

Front is more nerdcore than chris, though I love mc with all my heart (spelled properly in all lowercase). I figure your comment was joking, but I’ve seen people flaming him to death on the board for a nerdcore compilation project.

It’s pretty bad when nerdcore artists get involved in disputes like gangster rappers, though I could imagine a pretty sweet game of laser tag coming out of it.